


Dreams and Wishes

by faithinthepoor



Series: Once Upon a Time [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:57:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the episode Dreamy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams and Wishes

**Author's Note:**

> In my series this follows my [Fairytale Drabbles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618763), [Mirror Mirror](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618771), [This Provincial Life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618775) and [Viviane or Nimue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618809)

Nobody’s life is perfect, she knows that, but she feels her life has been that little bit less perfect than other’s. The universe has not dealt out hard knocks evenly and she has been handed more than her share. 

Nothing has ever been stable for her. It was never safe to believe that the roof over her head wouldn’t come crashing down at any second. She has learnt not to hope and she has learnt not to trust. Over the years it has become clear that the only sensible way to protect herself was to keep moving. If you never stop people can’t touch you and they don’t have time to hurt you.

It’s bizarre to think that the one place where she has managed to establish a sense of permanency is here. In this sleepy little town with a child who believes that fairytales are real. Maybe it’s the fairytales that keep her here. Not because she believes in them, she learnt long ago that there are no such things as fairytales, but because of Henry’s blind assertion that they are real. He hasn’t learnt to stop dreaming and because he doesn’t understand the danger of hope she can’t leave him alone in this horrible world that is going to crush him.

It’s easy to feel protective and to sorry about Henry and his dangerous dreams. Especially when doing so means she doesn’t have to think about her own. 

Staying here isn’t good for her. She knows that and she tells herself time and time again that she should leave. It doesn’t happen though. The longer she stays the more she is drowning in this small town hell and yet the harder it becomes to leave. She can’t even see the shore anymore, there is nothing but water and more water, and there is every chance that it may have become impossible for her to make it out. 

She knows she has no right to complain, nothing truly bad has happened to her here, but somehow she still feels that life is being unfair to her. Not just because she is stuck in Storybrooke but because she is failing at everything and letting down people who are important to her. 

Despite Henry’s fantastical beliefs about its origin, this is a quiet little town. So quiet that small things tend to get blown out of proportion because nothing big happens here. She’s looked through the records in the sheriff’s office, a task that didn’t take much time, and there is nothing in them to indicate that this town has even seen a major crime. Now, under her watch, there is a missing person’s case and that is the best case scenario. It’s entirely possible that what she is dealing with is a homicide. 

She’s a bounty hunter, not a detective. She may know how to track a criminal on the run but she has no experience finding a criminal who is standing still. All she really has to rely on is her gut and her gut is the thing that tells her that everything that goes wrong in Storybrooke is somehow related to Regina. 

This is no exception. She has no reason for her suspicions but she is certain that somehow Regina is involved. What evidence there is doesn’t lead to the mayor and Regina seems to have no motive and yet she is still number one on Emma’s suspect list. 

The situation is all the more strange because if not for Regina there wouldn’t be a suspect list at all. Regina is the one who took her to task over not looking hard enough into Kathryn’s disappearance. Regina is the one who threatened her job and suggested that she might be covering for someone. She is sure that Regina has someone else in mind, like the rest of the town she was probably ready to call for Mary Margaret’s blood, but Emma can’t help thinking that the lady doth protest too much.

Regina’s visit left Emma busy pointing fingers even though there may not be anything to be pointing fingers about. She’s not sure what that says about her. Maybe she is so desperate for Regina to be guilty of something, anything, that she is imaging horrors that don’t exist. First Graham and now Kathryn. 

She has gone after Regina before, for something much more banal than murder, and ended up with egg on her face. Is it possible that between this and her mixed feelings over Graham’s death that she is starting to invent crimes just so she can find Regina guilty. She really hopes not because that is a whole new level of crazy. 

None of these thoughts even begin to cover the reality of what it would mean if she did arrest Regina. There is a large part of Emma who would kill to see Regina in handcuffs but she’s not sure that her reasons for this are entirely noble. She could certainly have a whole lot of fun if she had Regina locked away in her holding cell but she would never be allowed to keep her there.

If she ever got one up on Regina, Regina would be sent away and Emma’s not sure that she could handle it if that were to happen. Sure it would release her from the power that Regina seems to have over her but she’s not sure she wants to be free. If that’s all she wanted she could just turn around and hightail it out of town. She is not actually stuck in this backwater where the buses literally do not run but she acts like she is as incapable of leaving as the rest of the drones. She tells herself she stays for Henry but she knows it’s not true. She here because of Regina. She’s bewitched. 

When she was taken to the well and drank the alleged magic water it failed to bring back the thing that she has lost. It failed to bring back her mind. If she’d come to her senses she would have left this godforsaken town but the water didn’t bring her clarity, it brought her Regina. 

If it really was the water’s magic she needs an IV infusion of it because its power doesn’t seem to last. She has only had brief and sporadic contact with Regina since she drank it. They had their interlude on the phone which was as stimulating as it was frustrating and then their not point of contact was when Regina waltzed into her office to question her competence. The mayor stayed only long enough to raise the little voice inside Emma that believes Regina is the source of all of the evil in the world and then she was gone.

Emma didn’t want to take things lying down but she stayed at her desk as she called out, “So we are done talking, are we?”

She wasn’t sure Regina heard her but the Mayor returned and eyed Emma from the hallway. “Did you have something that you wanted to add Sheriff?” In the low lighting it was hard to see Regina clearly and she seemed to hover. Emma’s inner reason wanted to describe the gesture as looming but most of her just found Regina sexy as all hell. “Because I thought I made my thoughts about what you should be doing about the disappearance of my friend very clear.”

“I have other bones I want to pick with you.” Emma said as she stared defiantly into Regina’s eyes.

“Really?” Regina let the word out slowly as she slinked across the room like a panther. She came to stand right next to Emma, leaning against the desk and forcing Emma to look up at her in an awkward manner.

Emma put down the highlighter and coffee cup and swivelled her chair so that she was able to take all of Regina in. “We have some unfinished business.”

“Is that so? And is this business more important than finding out what happened to Kathryn?” Regina’s voice was cold and it made Emma realise how selfish she was being but Regina had also begun to remove her gloves and that was what Emma chose focus on. 

She sat transfixed as Regina slowly pulled finger after finger out of the gloves. The spell wasn’t broken until all Regina’s digits were free, at which point she was able to look at Regina’s face again. “You left me high and dry the other night,” she accused.

Regina reached out and toyed with Emma’s hair. “That’s not how I recall things. I believe that at one point you were completely satisfied.”

“Oh I was,” Emma admitted, “and now it’s time to return the favour.” She pulled at Regina’s scarf, slowing drawing it towards her before dropping it on the floor.

Regina didn’t protest. In fact she jumped up so that she was sitting on the desk. “What was it that you had in mind?”

“Something like this,” Emma had pushed Regina’s jacket off her shoulders and kissed her neck.

“I like the way you think,” Regina grabbed the bottom of Emma’s turtleneck and attempted to yank it off but it got caught and Emma was forced to fight her way out.

Regina was laughing but Emma wouldn’t let that ruin the mood. “Sorry about that. Now where were we?”

“Somewhere around here,” Regina placed her hand around the back of Emma’s head and pulled the blonde’s lips back down to her neck.

Emma ran her hands up Regina’s thighs while she sucked on the skin of Regina’s neck. She wanted to leave a mark, for there to a piece of evidence that Regina could not ignore. Regina’s hands had found their way to Emma’s arse and she pulled her closer together. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to take you on my desk?” Emma growled.

Regina bit Emma’s ear before answering, “Probably about as long as I’ve wanted to take you on mine.”

Emma pulled Regina’s skirt up, allowing her to push the mayor’s legs further apart. In response Regina had wrapped her ankles around Emma’s back and leaned back on her elbows. Emma bent down and kissed her way up Regina’s chest before ending at her mouth.

Their kisses deepened and their tongues duelled for supremacy. Everything’s a battle with Regina. Absolutely everything. When the kiss ended Regina lay back looking flushed and breathless. Emma stroked Regina’s hair and said, “You are so beautiful. I like seeing you like this.”

“Good,” Regina had replied and then promptly sat up. Emma had expected Regina to return to kissing but instead she pushed Emma back and moved to stand. “I want you to be able to see me like that. Believe me,” she placed a small kiss to Emma’s lips. “So I suggest you find out what happened to Kathryn.” 

“Are you seriously going to do this?”

Regina gathered up her gloves and scarf and when she looked at Emma there was no trace of the wanton women she had been moments before. “Sheriff Swan what kind of a mayor would I be if I put my own needs above those of the people of this town?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know we both need this.” In a move more brazen than was probably safe Emma had pushed her hand under Regina’s jacket and pinched at her nipple.

Regina shuddered as nipple stood to attention and for a moment it had seemed as though her resolve would waver. “I do need this. Need you,” she clarified, “so very much. So hurry up and work out what happened to my friend.”

“You still owe me.”

“I guess I do.”

“I’m going to hold you to that when I’ve sorted out this situation.”

“Whatever it takes for you to do your job sheriff.”

“I’m not your puppet,” she yelled at Regina’s back. “I will find out what happened to Kathryn because it’s my job and because it’s the right thing to do. Not because of anything that you have said or done.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself dear,” Regina said as she left.

Emma banged her head on the desk and cursed Regina yet again.

She told herself that she wouldn’t be influenced by Regina and spent some time soul searching. Her soul searching seemed mainly to take the form of coming up with ways to torture the mayor but it did convince her that she needed to act.

She found herself standing in the town square and she trids to tell herself that she was there for all the right reasons. She has no idea if that’s true. She can’t even begin to understand her motives nowadays. It makes it hard to feel good about herself. As she hauled David in for questioning she worried that she may never feel good about herself again. 

She wishes she were better, that she was really the sheriff this town is looking for because as she led David into the station it felt like a farce. Emma’s not sure that he’s guilty, after all that flies in the face of all of her theories about Regina, and she knows that in bringing him in she will break the heart of the one person who has been good to her since she arrived in this town but that’s not enough to stop her. Nothing would have been enough to stop her because all she can think about is that she has to solve this because she has to see Regina.


End file.
